Peter Keen coached Chris Boardman to Great Britain’s first Olympic cycling gold in 72 years at the 1992 Games.
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

The man who set British cycling on the road to the top has said his “greatest fear” is the threat of “collateral damage” from the allegations of wrongdoing that have engulfed the sport in recent months.

A furore has erupted around Team Sky following the decision to seek permission for Sir Bradley Wiggins to use otherwise banned substances, and Sir Dave Brailsford’s squad is now part of a UK Anti-Doping investigation into allegations of “wrongdoing” in cycling.

Wiggins’s use of the anti-inflammatory triamcinolone was granted before three of his biggest races between 2011 and 2013, including the 2012 Tour de France which he won.

The controversy follows the earlier launch of ongoing inquiries into bullying and financial impropriety within the Great Britain set-up and a pre-Rio 2016 Olympics row over Lizzie Deignan’s missed anti-doping tests.

Speaking to the BBC 5 Live’s Bespoke cycling show, the former British Cycling performance director Peter Keen said: “The need now for conclusive explanations and evidence is greater than ever. It’s collateral damage.

“When I look at people like [the six-time Olympic champion] Jason Kenny or [the 14-time Paralympic champion] Dame Sarah Storey, these are stories that are so special because they’re about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.

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“I have never sensed anything about them that says that what he have seen isn’t the absolute real deal. Where there’s confusion and doubt about a very high-level performance sport, linked to a programme they are a part of, that’s my greatest fear.”

Keen told the BBC he has seen no evidence to suggest anybody at British Cycling or Team Sky has broken any anti-doping rules. Team Sky and British Cycling are cooperating with the Ukad investigation, which Wiggins has welcomed. Team Sky believe there has been no “wrongdoing”.

Keen, who coached Chris Boardman to Great Britain’s first Olympic cycling gold in 72 years at the 1992 Games, took over the British programme in 1997 and immediately set his riders and staff the challenge of becoming the world’s No1 cycling nation.

Using the new inflow of National Lottery money and a no-compromise approach, the team were on the way to achieving that goal by the time Keen took his philosophy to the elite funding agency UK Sport so he could implement his ideas across British sport.

In a wide-ranging interview, Keen calls on Team Sky’s boss, and his successor as British Cycling, Brailsford, to give a “better explanation” for why Wiggins needed three therapeutic use exemptions to take triamcinolone, a drug which has a history of abuse in cycling.

Brailsford, who left his role as British Cycling performance director in April 2014 to concentrate on Team Sky, and Wiggins insist it was medically necessary to deal with a pollen allergy that aggravates Wiggins’s long-standing asthma condition. There is no suggestion any rules were broken and the TUEs were approved by the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, and the relevant anti-doping authorities.

Keen also wants a clearer answer on why a British Cycling employee, Simon Cope, delivered a package to Team Sky’s doctor Richard Freeman at the end of the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné race, Wiggins’s final tune-up before the Tour de France. Freeman now works for British Cycling. Brailsford has declined to reveal what was in the package, preferring his team to be exonerated by the Ukad investigation.

Keen, who has spent the past year as the Lawn Tennis Association’s performance director, wants greater separation between British Cycling and Team Sky, who have been intertwined since the road squad’s inception in 2009 and first season in 2010.

A 2011 review conducted by Deloitte, carried out to ensure UK Sport funds were used appropriately, approved the relationship. But Keen has told the BBC it did not go far enough.

His criticisms will be make for tough listening at the National Cycling Centre headquarters British Cycling shares with Team Sky in Manchester, and the positions of the Team Sky principal Brailsford, and Ian Drake, the governing body’s chief executive, are bound to come under increased scrutiny.

Keen’s comments go beyond Manchester as he also believes sports organisations should scrap in-house doctors in order to avoid the conflicts of interest that arise when an athlete, coach or both wants medication a doctor might have reservations about prescribing, particularly if that medication is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list.

There have also been allegations over the past availability of tramadol among British riders. The painkiller is not banned but is on Wada’s monitoring list, and many in cycling believe its use has resulted in crashes in races.

“A lot of sport organisations, professional sports and increasingly governing bodies will employ a doctor to look after the health and wellbeing of players and athletes. I am increasingly of the view that is probably not a good thing,” Keen said.

“They probably are going to be able to make a better judgment about where those fine lines now are if they are actually accountable to their peers, from either hospitals, or specialist sports institute environments.”

This week the former British Cycling president and current UCI president Brian Cookson said Team Sky may have pushed the TUE rules “to the very limit” when it asked for those triamcinolone injections for Wiggins, the five-time Olympic gold medallist who plans to retire next month.